Home fire safety

Sign for fire prevention

Fires can burn down you houses very quickly, sometimes they could be so quick that people can get trapped and die, so we should be very careful and vigilant. | Source

Prevent home fires

Welcome to our article ((21) (48)) Home fire safety

Home fire safety first of all

Dear readers, let us talk in this article, about fire safety, because it is one of the most important things to know. You see, there are times in our lives, when something dreadful happens, and suddenly we become aware, that we could have prevented that dreadful happening, if we had been more careful. Or if we would have planned those things that could have prevented that event to happen; so, sometimes we might even blame ourselves for what has happened.

Anyhow in this article, we are going to write a few things about fire safety, and other things as well, because we would like to point out these dangers, we could also be able to give some advice, how to avoid some dangers wherever we can. So, this article is going to be a bit of this and that, but we will be talking mostly about fire safety.

The reason, we are writing about this fire issue today, it is because there has been a fire in a street nearby where I live, and although the house was badly damaged by fire, this time the occupants were lucky enough to run out of this house, even though they lost all their personal belongings. So, this makes me think about what could have been done to prevent this fire, or what should we do in case of fire. Well these things are not easy to answer, perhaps we need to have a plan how to escape, but let us look at the many aspect that could help us.

I believe that, we should make this issue of preventing home fires in our lives a priority, or any type of fire that puts in danger people and property as well, because it is very important to do that. You see, we all ask questions after some tragic event has happened, when properties are burned out and sometimes even loss of life happens; the worse and painful part of it all, it is that it could have been prevented or minimized. Of course, these events become more painful and sad when people die; but these things happen only because people did not know enough how to prevent the fire, and because they did not have a plan how to escape it, so, they became trapped and perished, we are going to say something about how we could avoid being trapped in a house fire, if we plan these safety things properly.

You see, if everybody of us can contribute some of our life accumulated knowledge how to avoid the worst part of these tragic events, then that person has done his best and this is what I am trying to do here. I hate to say that when we hear news like these, we think that something is very wrong there, and we believe that there should have been a way to prevent these tragic happenings, especially when people die in a fire.

Now what made me write this article here for the first time, it is that I have witnessed a few fires during my life, including the fire that has happened recently, there was this fire in the street where we live, in the street where we live there have been other fire years ago, and an old man died in the fire and it was very sad. What happened then made the owners demolish the house and for a few years we have this vacant block of land, which is an eye sore in the street, we hope that the owners will soon do something about it and sell it, or build something new, because we are sick and tired to see this very unpleasant views of it.

Recently there has been another fire not far from it, but this time the owners managed to escape unhurt, at least this is the good news of this other house fire. Anyhow I am writing this article also to say my views, and in a small way say something that could help prevent a tragedy. So, if you read this entire article, you will see my point of views how to leave a way to escape in case of fire. So, let us discuss what could be done, because I believe that we need to plan home fire safety.

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Timber house on fire nearby

This timber house is burning fiercely nearby, and this time the owner has been lucky to escape alive and unhurt we have been told, because he was awake when the fire started. | Source

Other fires

This is a sign for fire prevention, it shows how dangerous can be to light a fire in the open country, people should listen to the news specially if they live in the country, and they should know what to do if they need to light a fire outside. | Source

Home fire safety and other things

Our intension here is that we are going to talk about home fire safety, but we are going to talk about other things as well, because this is what we need to do, so, let us continue. I believe that it is always the same, as soon as something dreadful happens in our lives, and there is loss of property or even life, we start asking ourselves whether we have done the right things, and whether that tragedy could have been avoided, but then it is usually too late for whatever has already happened. We should be looking after ourselves and our own lives with all our personal faculties because we are constantly exposed to many dangers including fire, some of these dangers may result in being hurt or even death. Therefore, we should look where these dangers may come from and plan to avoid them whenever and wherever possible.

We would like to bring to our reader’s attention, that what is going to be written in this article, is what has happened recently, at the time when this article was written for the first time, and that should be kept in mind while reading this article, and a few other things that have happened in those times.

In our lives one of the main dangers is fire and water, in facts there are sayings in many languages; God help us from water and fire! You see these two elements that are so friendly when they are in the right proportion, they suddenly can become very dangerous and life threatening, so, we must guard ourselves from these dangerous two elements and from other dangers. Today we cannot help thinking about what has just happened in Arizona USA.

You see while I was about to edit my hub about fire safety, which I have written a while ago, I heard the sad news and I felt so sorry for the loss of life that this fire has caused; there are no words to describe the sad fact that 19 people have lost their lives, while they were doing their best to control this fire in the country of Arizona USA. Our thoughts of sympathy and our prayers go to their families and all those people that are closely involved.

This tragic event goes to prove that fires are very dangerous even to the fire experts that have been trained to control the fires. So, we need to be very careful about fire safety throughout our lives. To give our readers some ideas of what this fire was like, I am going to post some links in this article, so that we will be able to have a record of what has happened, in the hope that we would remember this tragedy and be more careful next time, if we have to light a fire in the open in the future. I am saying this not because this fire was started from an open fire, since it is believed that it was started from a lightning; however we should not light fires in the open when it is very hot and dry, as these tragedies can happen very fast when it is hot, as it was the case when this event has happened.

I hope that these links above work for you, today and in the future, so that they would remind us of these sad facts about dangerous fires. Of course there are many other fire accidents happening in the world even as we speak, but it is not our intention to report them here, because we would like to go back to what we had already written before about fire safety and other dangers that we are exposed to during our lives.

Other dangerous things

Other dangerous things that we should think about.

As we all know during our lives we are exposed to dangers that sometimes may even kill us, anyhow, today there are a couple of dangers that come to our mind more often than the others, because they are very often on the news, apart from the fires in the houses, there could be also other fires that could be prevented, one of these is when people go out drinking and then they drive when drunk, of course very often on the way home or wherever they are going they cause an accident, they smash their car and perhaps get hurt; if they cause a major accident not only they can get hurt, but they can also cause damage, injury or death to other people and when the accident is severe the car can even catch fire and the occupants may die in the burning car, which is really a terrible way to die.

Now that I have written about the dangers of driving when drunk, just because this seems to happen very often and seems to be on the news more than other dangerous behaviours; but as we all know there are other things that may endanger our lives, just because we don’t pay much attention to what is happening around us so to speak, but the fire is one danger that we really should try to avoid, it is too dangerous.

Therefore, whatever we do and wherever we go, we should look after our own safety first of all, it is not going to do us any good if something happens to us, and then, we try to blame somebody else for what has happened to us, we really should try to do our best to prevent anything bad happening to us, we should also be alert all the time if possible and anything suspicious should be checked out as soon as possible. Of course, there are things that we cannot control, and whatever they are should be looked at and we should be careful, when we come close to these dangers. Just to mention another danger that some of us might not think about, let me show you what just happened a few days ago not far from where I am living, when a house caught fire, and then see if there is anything that can be done to minimize the danger of our own lives, since we might find ourselves easily in the same position one day, as we all live in houses and sometimes houses can catch fire and burn and just like the occupant of the car, people can also die in a house fire, but there are things that can be done to avoid that, or at least minimize the loss of life.

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Timber house on fire

This timber house is burning fiercely, there is no way that this house could be saved now from the fire brigade now. | Source

Think fire safety first in wooden houses

In this article, we have mentioned many things about fires and other dangers, so, this article now covers many things. But above all, now we would like to talk about the importance of fire safety in the houses and particularly in wooden houses, because they can catch fire and burn more quickly than houses built with bricks and cement. Therefore, we should ask ourselves, what should we do to minimize the danger for the house occupants? And also, what else can be done to make it safer for the occupants to escape?

Dear readers, as I said at the beginning, what has prompted me to write this hub is what has just happened last night, at a house just a few doors from my daughter house; therefore, this has prompted me to write about this fire safety issue, so, let me write this article about the extra dangers, that we as the occupant of these wooden houses face when they burn, because it is easier for them to burn down and they burn down a lot quicker than a solid brick and concrete building, even though they can also burn down, but not as quickly as the timber houses. Somehow, we don’t know yet the reason, why this house that we are talking about here has burned down, now it may sound as if there was an electrical fault that started the fire, but really nobody knows yet, if this was the reason. Anyhow this is the extra danger that we as the house occupant face, when we live in these wooden houses.

Therefore, at this point of time one may want to ask; what can be done to avoid or minimise this danger of fires? I am sure that we all would like to know what is the best way to do that, so that we could be ready to avoid this fire danger the best way possible. Now, this is what I am going to try to explain next, in my own personal ways; since I believe that I might have one thing or two to say that could help, even if it is in a small way. First of all, let us try to stay alert and therefore aware of the danger of fire in these wooden houses, since they burn very quickly, we need also plan what to do to avoid the risks involved, or what should we do to minimize the dangers?

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House burning in Brisbane

This is another photo of the same house in Greenslopes, South Brisbane Qld. taken from my daughter Maria from another angle.

What should we do to minimize the danger?

How to minimize the fire danger

Therefore, let us see, what we could and should do to minimize the fire danger?

Today we all talk about that fire alarms may save life and in fact they do save lives; therefore we all have to understand that we must at least have a system for fire alarms, even if it might consists of one single fire alarm: but that is not all, as there are a lot of other things that one can do, so, let us take a look at what can be done to prevent the building catching fire, but at the same time and above all, let us find a way how to avoid loss of life, which is really a tragedy that most times could be prevented, if everything is planed the right way.

You see, there are many fire hazards in our houses these days, in fact there are many more fire hazards today than have been in the past. In the past the fire hazard was present only when we had to have a fire going, but usually we were there to mind the fire and use the fire to our advantage, and we were very much aware of its danger, because we used fire constantly. Today we don’t use the fire as much as we did in the past, because there are other things that have taken its place, therefore our awareness of its dangers has become a bit dull so to speak, therefore we seem to be less careful about fire hazards, but let us have a look where these fire dangers might be hidden.

Today when it is cold instead of lighting a fire we have other sorts of heater to warm the place up, some of these heaters are or might be a fire hazard and really we should not use those heater that can cause a fire, but if we have to use them, then we should really monitor them constantly until the day that we are able to replace them with another type of heather that is safer. But as we all know or at least we have heard all electric devise can become a fire hazard, so, when we are not using them we should turn them off properly. For instance, when we go out we should make sure that everything is turned off properly and above all when we go to bed we must turn them off, just in case they might start a fire.

Now, what I have said above is only a way for preventing the fire to start, and then burn the house down, but sometimes no matter how careful we are a fire can get started for many reasons, for instance when an electrical fault starts the fire; so, we have to be ready even for that and work out a way how to avoid this fire danger, even if we have to run away from the fire if we are in danger, since this might be the only wise thing to do.

As I have just said, sometimes the only wise thing to do is to run away from the fire if you are in danger, so this question arises, how can we do that easily and safely when we happen to be inside and all the doors are locked?

Here I have to say that I am writing this explanation in this article, because I want to say that we need to set everything in a way, that would make it is easy for us to escape the fire, since not many people seems to point out this particular danger; I believe that sometimes people make mistakes when they want their houses safe from break in, because they overdo it, so, they may be able to make their house safe from break in, but in doing so, they put their lives at risk from the fire, because they put safety bars to all windows and doors, when this is done it becomes very hard to get in or out of the house.

This is a dangerous mistake, which could easily cost people lives and it can be prevented, if we plan it the right way in advance properly. Therefore, before we start putting safety bars to all windows and doors, we should use our common sense and realize that if people cannot get in also people cannot get out, I hope now you see what I mean here, because this is where the danger of being trapped is.

Look, how many times we have heard that some people have lost their lives in the fire, when their house burned down. Now, what follows here is one of the most horrible scenario about fires, it is when some people are trapped inside a room and they are crying out for help, but nobody can help them quickly enough to get them out of there, because all their windows have safety bars on them.

This is what I want to say; whatever you do for safety reasons to prevent unwanted people coming into your house do not overdo it, because it is not worth the risk and you can lose your life. So think first of all, how to set everything up in the first place and make sure above all that you have a way out in case of fire, and then you can go ahead and do what you have to do, to make your house safe. I am sure that now you are going to ask, how can we achieve that? So, let us see what else can be done for safety reasons.

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Fire brigade truck on the scene

Fire brigade truck on the scene of the fire. These photos were taken from Maria. Thanks Maria for sharing your photos.

What else can we do?

So, what else can be done to minimise the fire dangers for the occupants?

To minimize the fire danger for the occupants it is not as easy as it sounds. Because every house is different, therefore every house should be treated in a different way, so there cannot be an easy answer that is the same for every house; therefore, everybody is going to work out what could be done in their own case, but let us suppose this scenario to start with:

So, let us assume that at your house you have a room that has two windows, you are worried that one day somebody will break in, or just walk in without you even knowing it, because in summer, when it is hot the windows are usually open, and because they are low it is easy for a fit person to get in; so, you are thinking to set safety bars to secure your house.

Okay, it is a very good idea to put safety bars to the windows to secure your house from thieves, but by putting safety bars to all your windows and doors, not only it will stop people getting in, it will also stop people getting out, and if there is a fire you are trapped. Therefore, in my opinion you can set safety bars to one window only safely, which you can keep it open all the time if you want, as nobody can get in your house since there are safety bars, the other window you may have to think of doing something else, perhaps you can put safety bars on inches that can manually be opened from the inside, or put in an extra bolts, or whatever it may be needed to make it secure, but whatever you do you should keep in mind that one must be able to open this window manually and easily from the inside.

When we talk about opening a window or door manually, we mean also that you should not install any sort of locks that require a key to open manually, everything must be there in place already and you can open this window easily just by using your hands, therefore you can use this window or door to escape the fire. This also goes for all the rest of the house, you must leave a way out in each room if possible that you manually can open from the inside and therefore be able to escape the fire. I hope that I have explained myself clear enough about what I believe needs to be done.

I am planning to add more articles if and when I can think of another one, about ways of how we can set or make things for fire safety reasons in our homes. See you soon.

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Anyhow, first of all try to put yourself out of danger, then call the emergency number of your country, if in Australia it is, 000, or call any other authority that are able to help.

I believe we have said enough in this article, so, see you in our next article about buildings.

Other useful links

Australia affordable housesBuilding houses to sell is usually good business, when they sell easily, but when they don't sell the builders should really watch what they are doing, because they may need to sell their houses at cost and sometime below cost. Therefore for the buye

Genzano it storyThis is a blog about the town that I came from and other articles

Genzano di LucaniaThe town where I come from is Genzano di Lucania, I would like to show you some of the town first, so that it would be easier for me to write my memories of when I was young.

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